Young sturgeon to be released into Kalamazoo River; public event includes ceremony

Courtesy Photo | DNRA lake sturgeon captured in the Kalamazoo River in May.

Approximately 70 of 100 young sturgeon will be released to the Kalamazoo River on Sept. 24 in a ceremony to celebrate the first successful hatching and rearing of young sturgeon by state, federal, tribal and local partners.

The public event, scheduled to run from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., will be at New Richmond Bridge County Park, 3160 Old Allegan Road, in Fennville.

It includes tours of the mobile sturgeon rearing facility, a kids fishing event, music, food and a sturgeon release ceremony at noon.

"This is very exciting," said Suzanne Dixon with the Kalamazoo River Sturgeon for Tomorrow, a non-profit organization working to see sturgeon restored in the Kalamazoo River. "This is everything we had hoped for."

Michigan fisheries officials say they will release 100 sturgeon in all. Each will carry a tiny embedded tag that identifies them as Kalamazoo River fish that were reared at the facility there. Thirty of the sturgeon will have surgically embedded transmitters that will allow state biologists to monitor their whereabouts in the river and follow them downstream when they migrate out to Lake Michigan.

The young fish -- about 700 -- were netted as freshly hatched and tiny, drifting larvae last spring. Many died in the first week from netting and handling trauma.

As of June, state officials reported 140 viable inch-long sturgeon in the mobile rearing facility. Additional mortality was a possibility, state officials said. Other similar first efforts often have resulted in only 50 being released.

"We accomplished a lot and learned a lot with this first effort," said Kregg Smith, the sturgeon research coordinator for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. "Hopefully we will get better survival next year."

The sturgeon rearing facility at New Richmond Park is the newest of six mobile sturgeon rearing facilities parked around Lake Michigan.

The others are located on the Milwaukee and Manitowoc rivers in Wisconsin, the Cedar and Whitefish Rivers in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and on the Manistee River in the Lower Peninsula.

The young sturgeon are fed and reared in the facility where they swim in tanks filled with home river waters and learn to imprint on those waters, a crucial part of their development so they return to the home river to spawn.

Female sturgeon can live to be 80 years old. Males can live to 65. Males live in Lake Michigan until they are 12 years old and return to spawn every other year. Females are 18-20 years old before they spawn. They reproduce every four to seven years.

"The new releases will migrate down to Kalamazoo Lake and spend most of the fall and winter there feeding," said Jay Wesley, the DNR’s southwest Michigan fisheries supervisor. "Then they will move out into Lake Michigan and migrate around for the next 12 to 15 years. By the time I retire I might see them return to the river."